User profile for user: El Deanio
El Deanio Author
User level: Level 3
809 points

Photo Booth 'Export' not functioning

I have short sequence, capture with iSight, of me with the fish swimming in the background. It's about 9 seconds long, maximum.

I wanted Photo Booth to export it as an animated GIF so that I could use it as an Avatar on a certain Web Site Forum.

I used the 'Export...' option in the File menu drop down in Photo Booth. I changed the filename from "untitled.gif" to something else. I even opened a new folder. However when I clicked on the 'SAVE' button the dialogue window closed without Photo Booth having saved anything.

The unique folder I had just created is there alright. There's just no new animated .gif file in it. Empty.

The Export feature of Photo Booth appears therefore to be broken.

I know that Apple intended me to be able to create animated GIF files because there are instructions on how to do it in the Photo Booth Help files.

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

PowerMac 6500/300 (603e) MacOS 9.1: eMac 1.25hz G4 MacOS 10.4.10:, Mac OS X (10.5.6), iMac 24" 2.8ghz G6 Intel 750gb HDD, MacOS 10.5.6. Ext. MyBook 500 Gb.HDD 2Vols -

Posted on Jul 5, 2009 9:23 AM

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User profile for user: EZ Jim
EZ Jim
User level: Level 7
22,590 points

Posted on Jul 5, 2009 3:58 PM

As explained in Photo Booth help, 4-up snapshot is exported as an animated GIF image.

  http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=PhotoBooth/1.0/en/11572.html

On my PPC Mac, exporting a nine second movie made in Photo Booth with a file name of xx.mov resulted in a one second movie of the first frame that Photo Booth recorded. In short, I got a one second movie with no movement.

I did a test and was able to successfully convert a two second test movie made in Photo Booth to an animated gif using the following process:

(1) I first used QuickTime Pro to export the movie to an image sequence of one tif image for each of the movie's frames.

(2) Then I used Photo Shop Elements (PSE) to create an image of thirty layers and copied each movie frame image into its respective layer. (If you don't have PSE, any image editor that can create animated gifs could be used instead.)
 
(3) However, when I tried to create the animated gif from this layered image, PSE reported that the file was too big to convert to a gif and suggested that I either resize the image or reduce the number of layers. Because you plan to use your gif as an avatar, I resized the image from its original 640x480 to 48x48. This image saved immediately and plays well in Safari as an animated gif.



I note that my two second test clip yielded thirty images. At the 15 fps frame rate, your nine second movie would yield 135 frames. I did not attempt to create a gif that large, but I did replicate the layers several times to make an animated gif that has about 130 frames. It played well as an animated gif, too, but ran about four times longer before repeating than the original 30 frames.

The process I used is simple, but it takes some time. If you decide to try to convert your nine second video clip to an animated gif, you might want test a small segment first to be sure it behaves as you expect before investing the time to convert the entire file.



EZ Jim



G5 DP 1.8GHz w/Mac OS X (10.5.7) PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)   iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9)  External iSight
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User profile for user: EZ Jim
EZ Jim
User level: Level 7
22,590 points

Jul 5, 2009 3:58 PM in response to El Deanio

As explained in Photo Booth help, 4-up snapshot is exported as an animated GIF image.

  http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=PhotoBooth/1.0/en/11572.html

On my PPC Mac, exporting a nine second movie made in Photo Booth with a file name of xx.mov resulted in a one second movie of the first frame that Photo Booth recorded. In short, I got a one second movie with no movement.

I did a test and was able to successfully convert a two second test movie made in Photo Booth to an animated gif using the following process:

(1) I first used QuickTime Pro to export the movie to an image sequence of one tif image for each of the movie's frames.

(2) Then I used Photo Shop Elements (PSE) to create an image of thirty layers and copied each movie frame image into its respective layer. (If you don't have PSE, any image editor that can create animated gifs could be used instead.)
 
(3) However, when I tried to create the animated gif from this layered image, PSE reported that the file was too big to convert to a gif and suggested that I either resize the image or reduce the number of layers. Because you plan to use your gif as an avatar, I resized the image from its original 640x480 to 48x48. This image saved immediately and plays well in Safari as an animated gif.



I note that my two second test clip yielded thirty images. At the 15 fps frame rate, your nine second movie would yield 135 frames. I did not attempt to create a gif that large, but I did replicate the layers several times to make an animated gif that has about 130 frames. It played well as an animated gif, too, but ran about four times longer before repeating than the original 30 frames.

The process I used is simple, but it takes some time. If you decide to try to convert your nine second video clip to an animated gif, you might want test a small segment first to be sure it behaves as you expect before investing the time to convert the entire file.



EZ Jim



G5 DP 1.8GHz w/Mac OS X (10.5.7) PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)   iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9)  External iSight
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User profile for user: mns579
mns579
User level: Level 4
1,170 points

Aug 20, 2009 2:44 PM in response to EZ Jim

That note -- http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=PhotoBooth/1.0/en/11572.html
-- refers to Photo Booth 1.0. The current version is 2.0.3 (which runs on Intel machines only, it seems, since EZ Jim is running the current Leopard on a PPC Mac, in contrast to the different experience of Ralph Johns with Leopard on an Intel Mac). One of the new features in version 2 is the ability to export both burst shots and movie clips as animated GIFs:

"Movie exports: You can export your burst snapshots +and movie clips+ as a GIF image. You can then use the image as an “animated GIF” in websites or as your iChat buddy picture." (Photobooth help file)

But be aware that Photo Booth has an undocumented limit on the size of the movie that can be exported as an animated GIF. My limited testing suggests the limit is about 10-11 seconds. Anything over that size will fail to export--and will fail without any sort of error message.
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User profile for user: Ralph-Johns-UK
Ralph-Johns-UK
User level: Level 9
76,811 points

Jul 5, 2009 11:16 AM in response to El Deanio

Hi,

There is an animated .gif feature.
Bottom left there are three icons for thr type of Pic to save - a single pic, set of four (rapid snaps one after the other) and Video version.

It is the set of 4 which are saved as a layered .gif which creates the animation.

You can not convert Video with Photo Booth.
Edit - Yes this does work on Mine. I had always thought it was the pics only that could be stored as an animation.

I did find that the Name of the file placed it in very different place in the folder I was storing it in.
(Alphabetically there is a lot between 4 up..... and Movie on....)

User uploaded file

8:06 PM Sunday; July 5, 2009

Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)
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User profile for user: EZ Jim
EZ Jim
User level: Level 7
22,590 points

Aug 20, 2009 8:02 AM in response to compleidiot23

compleidiot23 wrote:
... does that mean an intel imac, can export a photo booth movie as a .gif


Short answer: NO

If you want more explanation, keep reading.

(1) The Photo Booth app, whether running on iNtel or PPC Macs, CAN export a "4-up snapshot" as an animated GIF image. This Photo Booth Help page explains how to do it:

  http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=PhotoBooth/1.0/en/11572.html

However, Photo Booth's "export" to gif ONLY works with what Photo Booth calls a "4-up snapshot."

(2) Photo Booth is a basic, fun, app of very limited capabiliities. 

Photo Booth CANNOT export or otherwise covert any movie file to GIF or any other format.
Photo Booth was merely not written to offer that function.

You CAN convert a movie (whether created in Photo Booth or any other Mac app) to animated GIF it you use a software application that offers a conversion or creation feature. The one I use for this purpose is QuickTime Pro. The method I use is described in my earlier post in this thread:

  http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9771261&#9771261

EZ Jim



G5 DP 1.8GHz w/Mac OS X (10.5.8) PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)   iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9)  External iSight
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User profile for user: EZ Jim
EZ Jim
User level: Level 7
22,590 points

Aug 20, 2009 5:38 PM in response to mns579

Thanks, mns579

You are correct that I am running only PPC Macs. Thanks for letting us know that movie exports work with your iNtel Mac.

Although the Photo Booth version I am using is v.2.0.3, too, its help page says the same thing on my PPC Mac as the web help page that I linked (except, of course, it does not say "Photo Booth 1.0 Help"). 

The sentence that says:

If you export a movie clip, one frame per second is exported.



is exactly the same on my Mac as the linked Help page. However, I experience the same failure that the OP reported in that "exporting' any movie will not save a gif, at any frame rate (frame per second.)

My PPC Mac's Photo Booth Help will not return any other help page for "Movie exports," so you seem to have confirmed that iNtel and PPC Macs work differently in this case. The work-around I described earlier is the best suggestion I can offer to other PPC Mac users.

Kudos for the help!

EZ Jim



G5 DP 1.8GHz w/Mac OS X (10.5.8) PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)   iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9)  External iSight
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Photo Booth 'Export' not functioning

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